Facebook gains another...

Mmmm. Now there's a thing. I'm now using Facebook.
Well, when I say 'using' I mean I have registered and I've started to link to lots of people either because of Greenwich connections or older friends (from a previous university life) and family.
But I still don't quite know what it's for.
I'm also in the strange position where our website www.pleasewalkonthegrass.com is linked to my FB page (and a number of groups I've set up or joined) and it's got a kind of blog front page as you both (!) know. Then there is this blog...
...oh and a Flickr account...
I've used Linked-in, a thing called Spreadshirt (you can see through PWOTG) and informe (which is where our Forum is hosted, free) and I've set up a Basecamp account for collaborative working...
That's in addition to online banking, utilities, Ebay, Google accounts, my ISP...

My brain has now imploded with all the login and password stuff to remember and not having any kind of computer is both v attractive and scary...

Mmmm blogs left to rot

...as is the case here.
What the heck is a blog for? If no-one is reading it, like any other form of communication or promotion, it just doesn't work.
The other issue is, of course, that blogs require commitment. You have to want to keep updating your thoughts and sometimes, quite frankly, I don't have anything to say.
Actually, sometimes, I'm just not thinking about anything useful. This is especially true if you are not a monomaniac.
I seem to have so much to do, so much to cram in, and seem to have so far to go, it's difficult to stop and consider if what I'm doing is relevant to this blog or that website. Which is why they're not updated as often as they might be.
But that brings us to the problem of blogs - they are still 'push' media in the first instance (much as I hate the use of the term) and they tend to define an audience. They get picked up because they have a lot about one thing and offer 'wormholes' into deep cyberspace without any of that long searching. But (and here's the rub) if they become less relevant, they can be dropped and forgotten instantly.
So, if my blog is little use to anyone...or it is only occasionally interesting...why am I writing it?


xx
u
~

etc

Grrrrrrrrrrr

I have real problems with photos...any advice?

So is innovation about people or technology?

...and I know the academics reading this will answer "Both!"

I was prompted to think about this when considering some of the Associates we're recruiting for the new project (see the news item).

I also looked at one of the Henley Management College's intriguingly named 'Schools of Thought Leadership' (which does sound a bit 1984). The one I was taken with was the 'School of Growth, Innovation and Enterprise' and in particular its 'Centre for Creative Destruction'. Great name.

But have a look - I was quite disappointed. It didn't seem to me to be particularly destructive...or creative.

Then, as these things happen, I watched a repeat of the wonderful QI (just a few minutes ago actually - the story is also in the QI Book of General Ignorance).

Stephen Fry happened to ask if anyone knew what 'desire lines' were.

You can look at the Wikipedia entry which gives you a very dry account, or simply check out the picture.

It's what people do, or where they go, of their own accord; regardless of what you tell them, or expect of them.

I guess lots of people have blogged on this subject as it is a great metaphor for design and practice. Again, some of the discussion is quite arid, though you might want to check http://www.desirelines.org.uk/.

As an example, a website (or any kind of IT system) is of course designed, but if it doesn't match the natural behaviour and inclination of the users, they just don't work.

Hence even the current crop of Web 2.0 'social networking' sites aren't quite as innovative (or creative or destructive...) as we might think since they are also very structured way before they get any users. Having said that, of course, the users themselves make the connections that are so important to social networking sites and they decide (to some extent) what data (photos, music, chat) are exchanged. But there is a constraint built in.

Until, maybe Web 2.1, or possibly Web 3.0 when users log into a completely blank screen and then decide what they want. Anyone know of a site like this?

The analogy is clear - you don't build the pathways until people define them for you. Maybe you just need better and better research, but I think not since customers move about a lot, changing their minds to boot (ask Stephen Brown and read his paper); I imagine quite a few people sign up to Bebo and MySpace and never use it; I read somewhere about the thousands of blogs frozen in time some months back as they are neglected by their writers.

It may be that the most successful companies just go out there and innovate on a hunch - a genuine creative action - and the ones we hear about get lucky.

Yes...I have thought about the relevance of 'please walk on the grass'. Just let them walk and see where they go.

Phil

Ooooh so much happening

It’s an age since I put anything on this blog. Mainly because I’ve been working on the actual http://www.pleasewalkonthegrass.com/ website.

It now includes a forum for collaborative working (free, of course, through informe.com)… well asynchronous discussion of stuff. This allowed us to publish extra content for our book shown here and available through our Amazon store at the website.

We’ve also started selling merchandise which is actually rather groovy (supplied through a free site called spreadshirt.com or .co.uk – yes, we’ll promote it)

We’re now in the process of putting together our second book (through those wonderful people at A&C Black) and recruiting associates and ‘stringers’ for the website/book/empire. We’re not quite into a web 2.0 version of our site but I sense it coming.

Rather late in the day I’ve been looking at Hugh Macleod’s ‘Blue Monster’ for Microsoft* and the discussion around that. The viral, blogging stuff is very interesting but I don’t know if it has a measurable, global impact. Anyone have some figures?

I’m also pressing on with my research which today involved helping out at a protest – I’ll write more in due course.

Oh and my son Jack is in conversation with a TV production company to film his three week Europe trip – great excitement!! Watch out for it on joost tv…

Finally, it is Summer and with graduation ceremonies at Greenwich – time to party, then off to Cornwall and the sublime Watergate Bay.

Have a good one!

Phil

Guilt trip...

It's been a long time I know...
The only excuse I have is that the book is now finished! And just yesterday was published.
What's been happening? Well, work at Greenwich seems ot have taken up the lion's share of my time and I've been trying to get on with my research.
My PhD is based at Manchester and I've been up there a couple of times again and conducted a couple more interviews - not as many as I should. I also had an important review meeting a couple of weeks ago which seemed to go o-k-a-y...
Nick is also deep into his research and doesn't seem to come up for air very often.
At the end of last year - shortly after my last post we took the decision to pay some guys to revamp the website and it should be going live any day now. John McMahon and MCMnet have done some pretty neat stuff (now I sound like a blogger) and, although our site is starting off a bit pedestrian, we hope it's going to grow.
It will develop over the next few months as we start posting and it's likely this proto-blog will get forgotten. And we're looking forward to setting aside a day or so a month to keep it up to date and to record our podcast!! Woopee...I am so looking forward to it ~ it's going to be like a radio show; studio based rather than that uncomfortable feeleing you get (from some podcasts) like you're listening to some guy in his bedroom.
Family and just living has also take up time (quite rightly). My beautiful A has started working a couple of days a week at the preschool next to the younger boys' school, so she is ideally placed to pick them up and drop them off - it's going well, but then she has a real talent for looking after and teaching small children. The boys themselves D & J are thriving at school - though neither ever confess to liking it.
The Standing in Lines tour (mentioned last time) is on hold as the main protagonists face exams and my Dad's just had his hip replaced...seems very successful as I write.
Oh yes, we're in the planning stages of the next book...

What a day

Just occasionally I slip into a parallel universe where time stretches…until it snaps.

Working happily on the book, everything seemed under control yesterday. Today I awoke at 4am with a stomach gurgling so noisily I felt I had to get up so as to not wake my wife..

I won’t relate what happened next, but I spent the next few hours downstairs (working on the book again) and visiting the bathroom regularly.

I began work (again) at about 9 and got on quite well, distracted by trying to set up my blog with a graphic at the top and not the default title.

The things just started to happen – children home from school, oldest son rang to ask advice on a job offer, next oldest in crisis because of the possibility of his band touring (and other parents seemingly laying down the law about school taking precedence) then my appointment in Manchester being rearranged so I suddenly had to change my flight. Oh look! It’s half past eight.

A new term starts

What with all the students milling around loooking lost, it must be the new term.
I can't get over the fact that probably most of the overseas students payed over £10,000 to be here. So what are they getting for their money?
So far they are put through an administrative process that is peculiarly British. (Maybe it's the ideal introduction to our way of life.)
Queue, don't give enough time for the processes, queue some more, don't put any signage up, move people fom room to room, tell no-one what's happening [this might not be quite fair] and queue some more so you can fill out some forms and pay up...
More of this as we go along...but when you think they're studing marketing....

Just got back from the KMFM Battle of the Bands in West Kent UK. My son Jack's band Standing in Lines played. They were (I think the current phrase is) awesome.
They were up against some great bands and didn't get through to the final, but such was the competition that two of their competitors did!
You can still get them into the final by loggin onto the KMFM site. You can text as many times as you like and also vote online. They've got a CD as well so for just £4 you can have your own Standing in Lines experience...go on then.

(PS Jack is great. I'm very proud of him)

Culture jamming

I just love adbusters because I like the idea of making it difficult for consumers to 'read' ads. If they are not quite certain what is an ad and what is subverting advertising then maybe they'll questions just a little bit more. Maybe.
The thing that always strikes me about the students I meet (and I'm usually teaching them about marketing...) is their naivite - they really do believe that a brand that they know...Nike, Pepsi; the usual subjects...are better.
So I try to get them to visit adbusters..have a look.

My very first post

Hi, there's absolutely no reason why you should read this.